Various forms of storage devices allow information to be held over relatively a long period without information degradation. A common storage medium is flash memory; specifically, flash memory is a non-volatile form of storage that retains information without drawing upon a constant source of power. This type of memory is often employed in a variety of consumer electronic devices such as memory cards, universal serial bus (USB), flash drives, personal data assistants (PDAs), digital audio players, digital cameras, mobile phones, and so forth.
Another common type of non-volatile storage medium is a magnetic disk, which enables information to be recorded according to a magnetization pattern. Similar to other storage media, magnetic disks can be configured in a variety of manners (e.g., Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) as well as employed in many different applications. This type of storage device is commonly used in connection with databases and analog recordings.
In addition to non-volatile media, volatile forms of storage exist that provide certain benefits that may also be accompanied by particular disadvantages. For example, retrieval times for volatile media are generally faster than that for non-volatile media, and many operations have increased uniformity due to well-established standards. However, a fundamental drawback of volatile storage is that information is stored as electric charge or current flow and is, thus, lost when constant power is not available. A number of solutions have been suggested to mitigate this difficulty such as attaching an alternative power source, yet such solutions necessarily add to production and/or maintenance costs.
In classic operation, information is stored in one medium and portions of this information are not commonly transferred to another medium. Hence, conventional storage schema are generally subject to both advantages and disadvantages associated with a single, underlying storage medium type.